Couchsurfing!

We hosted two German girls who MOVED in!!

She took Louise's old room! So much fun!

Sara and Francois visit often

Sara used to live here and Francois is a couchsurfer and now a friend of all of us.

Larissa and Rebecca from Germany are now our housemates downstairs

Ali and Helen stayed only a few days and we are always accepting more surfers.

COUCHSURFING FUN!

One of our couchsurfing dinners

Larissa

German

Francois, Sara, Kevin and Jack

French, Swedish, American, Vietnamese

helping me make pancakes!

Breakfast for TEN!

Everyone who was here Sunday morning Oct. 24th

not Kevin, he was sick :(

Housemates come and unfortunately housemates go...

When we arrived in brisbane and found a place to stay we lived downstairs with Louise and Josh.

And then, they left!

They have been in the house for two years and decided to move in to a place together.

So we had another Goodbye Dinner.

The fun we have.

Bye Josh and Louise!

September in a Nutshell

September was a month where our Queen Bee Housemate who allowed Kevin and I to stay in the house... LEFT.

The Goodbye Dinner

She left for London to work then travel the world.

We had a great goodbye dinner and this meant Kevin and I were to move upstairs into her room.

This was exciting because the room was MUCH bigger and the place upstairs is nicer. Nikki left us some responsibilities of keeping the housemates on track with cleaning and paying rent. We continue to collect her mail and bills for the house. Easy for us. But we miss her.

Nikki also left us the responsibility of hosting couchsurfers. YAY!

We are SOOO excited to be the hosts for couchsurfers.

http://www.couchsurfing.org/

There are over 2 million couchsurfers all over the world including a total of 241 countries. We hosted a bit back home, but nothing materialized and worked out as smoothly as we liked. With much more freedom here in Brisbane and a place we call our own, we've gotten back on track to host because we were hosted in Brazil, Japan, New Zealand and met up with people from couchsurfing in Rio de Janeiro, Vietnam, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia and probably more!

Once Nikki left we had some former couchsurfers RETURN! They were an amazing couple from Spain and I'm SOOO GLAD they came back for a few days. stayed with us until they flew out.

We had a nice day at Kangaroo Point to have a BBQ.

BBQ at Kangaroo Point

Then at the end of September I finalized my days at Make A Wish Australia as I am now working with children one-on-one doing ABA Therapy again! YAY!

Goodbye Make-a-wish Australia :(

Kevin's food

Kevin is a cooking maniac. Perfect.

Because the transition to the Australian ways Kevin has been forced to cook more.

I'm SOO glad he's great at it.

Eating out in San Diego was a daily adventure. It was affordable and sometimes cheaper than making your own food. It's sooo different in Australia. Here, eating out is a luxury or meant for special nights out; Unless you're talking about fast food which is just unhealthy. So make breakfast lunch and dinner DAILY. Last night Kevin got even more creative and made falafels. Yum.

He boiled chickpeas, mashed them and mixed them with other veggies to make the falafel.

this is how it turned out with the pita bread and yummie veggie ingredients.

I made the cole slaw.

and the carrot cake.

River Fire the start of Brisbane Festivals

Tonight we went to South Bank and watched fire works on the river.

We showed up around 6pm and the fireworks start at 7pm so we were cutting it short.

It was PACKED!

We walked around for 40 minutes and finally decided on a small cemented area.

We sat on the ground and a few minutes later we were offered seat in 2 nice fold out chairs.

Wow, how about that?

We watched the incredible fireworks show in comfort.

Afterwards we headed to the West End by foot. The streets were just filled with people and the train station was lined up with families so far back we didn't even consider trying it.

We had some chinese food in the West End, a drink at Rumpus Room and another drink at Vinyl, The bar connected to the music venue "The Hi-Fi"

Fun night.

Australia June 27th to Now...

Well we spent a fair bit of time in a hostel in Brisbane, Queensland.

CBD

Once we arrived we met tons of people in our hostel.

Checked out Fortitude Valley, CBD and The West End at night.

They all have a great night life.

During the days we looked for jobs and enjoyed Brisbane.

CHINATOWN!

We went to GOMA. the Gallery of Modern Art. Saw the amazing exhibit by Ron Mueck.

And the aboriginal art...

Other days we watched Toy Story 3 in 3D/ Also went to the Botanical Gardens.

Took a nice walk around the river front.

All walking distance from our hostel.

Eventually we got a 4 day job delivering magazines "The Village News" local magazine for New Farm and Fortitude Valley. It was a hilarious casual job.

FINALLY! We found a room in a share house.

A small room but a lovely place with great housemates.

Then Kevin found a part time job and I found myself a full-time job

fundraising for "Make-a-wish Australia" or Make-a-Wish Foundation

(same thing really). I'm loving my job.

I'm sent to a new place nearly everyday, get to see all parts of Queensland or Brisbane.

I'm more and more familiar with ALL the lines on the Queensland Railway.

I interact with locals and of course ALL the immigrants who've come here.

I meet hilarious, generous people every single day and my co-workers are great too.

Couldn't ask for more, really.

Eating out is more expensive than usual. So we (mostly Kevin) make delicious food all the time!

eggplant parmagiana

Kevin's kobb salad

lasagne

apple crumble and vanilla ice cream

Kevin's pancakes

yum.